Google has bowed to pressure and will make 'significant' payments to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp

• Google just confirmed it had inked a landmark deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
• The Wall Street Journal and others will make some content available via Google News.
• The deal comes as Australia is set to debate laws forcing tech firms to pay news publishers for content.

Google has struck a deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, offering "significant" payments to display content from outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post on its News Showcase.

The agreement is a major victory for Murdoch and News Corp, which have long argued major tech firms should pay for the news content they display on their sites. The deal comes as Australian lawmakers prepare to debate new regulation that would force Google to pay news publishers to display their stories in its search results.

Murdoch has been one of the Google's most vocal critics, having previously called for the company to be forcibly broken up.

Under the terms of the new deal, News Corp titles such as the Journal and the Post in the US, as well as British outlets such as The Times, Sunday Times, and The Sun, will make some content freely available to Google News users.

Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp, said: "I would like to thank Sundar Pichai and his team at Google who have shown a thoughtful commitment to journalism that will resonate in every country.

"This has been a passionate cause for our company for well over a decade and I am gratified that the terms of trade are changing, not just for News Corp, but for every publisher."

"Over the years Google has invested significantly to help news organizations, including the Google News Initiative, our ad technology services, subscription tools, and our $1bn for news partnerships through Google News Showcase that pays publishers to curate content for an enhanced online news experience," said Don Harrison, Google's president of global partnerships.

"News Showcase now has partnerships with over 500 publications around the world, demonstrating the value this product can bring to our news partners and readers everywhere. We hope to announce even more partnerships soon."

Amid growing pressure to address the imbalance between tech platforms and legacy news outlets, Google has already signed up more than 450 publications worldwide to its Showcase platform, through which Google News users can access paid-for content for free, with the search giant covering the price difference.

Within the past week, Google has inked two $30 million Showcase deals with Australia's Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.

While the News Corp deal does represent a breakthrough of sorts in the hostile relationship between Google and the Murdoch media empire, not everyone was impressed.

Jeff Jarvis, a professor of journalism and author of "What Would Google Do?" branded the deal a case of "media blackmail."

"Google & FB won't change; they will maintain unread news features as loss makers to pay off the publishers," he wrote on Twitter. "The publishers won't change because they got a little more money. Startups will suffer. News will suffer. Society will suffer.

"Well done, everyone."

Australian lawmakers are expected to debate the details of its "news media bargaining code" later this month.